


Changeling

by TheDragonofHouseMormont



Series: never saw a wild thing [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Ableism, Communication, Folklore, Poetry, Post-Series, Pre-Series, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9282893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonofHouseMormont/pseuds/TheDragonofHouseMormont
Summary: There is a boy named Jules.  He died when he was six.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of this fic takes place after A Stitch in Time (and, in a way, is a response to it), but it isn't necessary to have read that book before reading this fic.  
> I wrote this to a lot of music, but if it were to have a real soundtrack it would be the Keaton Henson album Romantic Works, starting a minute in to the album on youtube. It's entirely instrumental.

I

He looks up at the sky often, the large never-ending expanse of blue, and traces the nonsensical shapes of the clouds with his finger, his other hand dragging Kukalaka behind him.  Turning to look at his mother beside him, he bends his head back so he can see her properly and asks, “How far away is the sky?”

She sighs loudly.  “That depends, Jules.”

The answer means nothing to him, so he looks away and back up at the sky.  Only a moment passes before he feels the small pressure of a hand on his back, rotating him slightly and leading him up a ramp.  The world around him darkens as they enter the ship.  “Where are we going?”

“It’s a planet called Adigeon Prime,” his father answers.

Jules doesn’t know what to do with that answer, when he asks where they’re going, the answers are usually ‘home’ or ‘school’.  He goes where his mother leads him and sits down in the seat when she tells him to.  She straps him in before taking the seat next to his.

As the ship takes off, it isn’t perfectly smooth, and he can feel the slight swaying and quick, sudden movements.  “I don’t feel good,” he tells his mother.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t feel good,” he repeats, frustrated.  He had just told her that, so why did she ask?  He looks away from her, turning his attention to the small window on the door they had come through.  On the other side he can see clouds, stretching as far as he can tell, and in spite of not feeling good, he smiles _.  The sky._

II

One bag, he decides, that’s all he’s going to bring with him.  The shuttle to San Francisco is leaving in an hour and he quickly throws open dresser drawers, grabbing what he needs.  He should have packed much earlier, he knows, but he’d lain awake all night instead, anxiety running through him as his mind cycled through scenarios.  At around midnight he’d forced his mind to stop circling its way around negative outcomes and focus instead on more internal matters.

It had been three years since he’d found out what he was and changed his name.  Now here he is, in the bedroom of a childhood that was barely his own, surrounded by its remnants.  Soon he would be leaving.  He had needed to decide what to bring and what to leave behind, and decided that he would only bring the absolute necessities.  A few casual outfits, he’ll be wearing the cadet uniform mostly, some night clothes, his pants, socks, and an extra pair of shoes.  Everything else will be left behind, it isn’t really his anyway.

He closes the bag and walks to the door.  As he flicks off the light, he turns around one last time, one last look at the life that had been his for the last twelve years.  His eyes run over the bed, the desk, the bookcases, and window.  They land on the shelf next to his bed and the small, stuffed bear in the center.  He swallows hard and his feet carry him back into the room.

His hands land on the bear and he knows he can’t leave his old friend behind.  Picking Kukalaka up, he walks to the window and looks down at him in the soft light – the sun won’t rise until 5:27, just around the time his shuttle will take off.  Julian’s mind races back to moments before he was Julian, back to the little boy who cherished this stuffed bear more than anything else, who patched up all his injuries and refused to leave him.  It’s such a small thing, really, he thinks as he looks back up and through the window, out at all the surrounding houses, and further up at the dark sky and stars above them.  _As small as a world and as large as alone._

He opens his bag again and stuffs the bear inside, just as he leaves the room.  He doesn’t look back this time.  In thirty seconds he’s down the stairs, ready to leave.  His parents are there waiting and he can tell his mother has been crying.

There must be some look on his face because she asks, “What’s wrong, Jules?”

He shakes his head.  “Nothing’s wrong.”  He’s anxious, he’s feeling a little nostalgic, maybe even melancholy.  He shakes his head slightly and smiles, “Nothing’s wrong at all.”

His father fixes him with a questioning glance, but his mother just nods and the three of them head out into the early morning.  When they reach the station, he sees the other cadets saying goodbye and hugging their parents, so he does the same.  He looks at them both awkwardly, not sure what else there is to say, and turns around to board the shuttle to Starfleet Academy.

He sits next to a window, but doesn’t look out as the shuttle lifts into the air.  Only when they’re far above the city does he take a glance at the buildings below them, barely illuminated in the sun that’s just starting to show itself over the horizon.  His eyes raise once more to the sky above them and the universe that he knows lies beyond it.

_It’s always ourselves we find in the sea._

III

They always meet in public, it seems.  The safety of the Replimat, a table between them, the white noise of other lives around them, filling all the open spaces.  There are cracks, of course, in the façade of casual lunch friends.  Julian still remembers Garak at his lowest; Garak yelling, growling, spinning out contradictory lies.  They came so close to being separated forever, the thought of Garak dying is one that plagues Julian now, infiltrating his nightmares and waking him up at odd, silent hours that never seem quite real.

Julian still remembers Garak dying.  It wasn’t real, but he can still feel Garak’s arms under his palms as they lost their strength, can still hear Garak’s final gasp of breath.

But then that same familiar face sits down across from him, pulling him from his memories and the distant sound of Commander Sisko telling him they needed to leave.

“I apologize for my lateness,” Garak begins with his usual air of mock seriousness.  “But you know how it is with customers.”

“I can imagine,” Julian responds warmly.  The two eat in silence for all of twenty seconds.

“Word on the promenade is,” Garak leans in with the performance of secrecy.  “That Odo’s people are behind the Dominion.”

Julian swallows back a smile at the lie.  “Is that something you _heard_ or something you read in a classified report?”

Garak’s appearance quickly slips into one of mock offense.  “My dear Doctor, you wouldn’t be implying that a simple tailor could read the secure reports of the senior staff?”

Julian shakes his head, the smile he’d held back threatening to break free in full force now as he sits back in his seat.  Still, there isn’t any telling just how much Garak knows, and Julian has no intention of directly confirming anything.  “Changelings,” he says without any commitment to a conversational direction.  “We have changeling myths back on Earth.”

“Myths of beings that can take any form?”

“No.  Well, probably.  But what I was referring to is the name.  There are a few cultures on Earth that used to believe in creatures called changelings.  The idea was that a faerie or other supernatural being would sneak into your house and abduct your child, replacing it with a changeling.”

Garak looks unimpressed.  “And _why_ would humans believe something so odd?”

“For the same reason that many myths come about, to explain things they didn’t understand.  Typically, the child was ill or behaved differently from other children, and the parents had no other way of handling the situation.  Some believed that their real child would grow up happily with the elves and faeries, while the changeling child they were left with would only grow up in sorrow.  Occasionally, they thought they could correct the situation by taking their ‘changeling’ child out to the woods and leave it in hope that the faeries would bring their real child back.  Other cultures thought they could begin the exchange for their ‘real’ child by placing the changeling in a heated oven.”

“I suppose I wasn’t entirely incorrect in my assessment of your species – humans apparently are quite capable of imaginative lies.”

“Yes, well, it’s not something that’s practiced on Earth anymore, as far as I know.  Good thing too as it usually resulted in the death of the child, and sometimes just outright murder.”

“How barbaric.”

Julian takes a breath as he thinks it over.  “We like to think that, don’t we, that our uneducated and ‘primitive’ behaviors remain firmly in the history of our cultures.  That we’re _better_ now.  I don’t think it works like that; we probably just switch out the old myths for new ones.”

Garak smirks, predatory, but underneath it Julian can see something else.  He’s still trying to learn and understand the many expressions of his secretive friend.  This one seems to carry a hint of uncertainty or curiosity.  “Doctor, is that cynicism I’m hearing?”

Julian shakes his head again and smiles, but he knows it doesn’t reach his eyes.

IV

He hears footsteps first as someone enters the infirmary, that’s the thing that throws him off.  The infirmary is in a bit of a lull at the moment and Julian’s taking the time to sort through more of his files in the database.  Lately he’s had to go through every single one, making sure that the changeling who had taken his place hadn’t altered or removed anything.  And then _that_ project got interrupted by his whole life being torn apart when the crime of his existence was revealed.

So when the footsteps sound just outside the infirmary, Julian turns around in his chair expecting to see a patient and hoping that he’ll be able to help them quickly so he can get back to the work of cleaning up his life.  What he sees instead is Elim Garak, standing just inside the door.  Julian turns back around to his work, but he stands up so it doesn’t look like he’s completely ignoring the other man.  “I’m a bit busy at the moment.”

“My apologies.  I just.  I’ll leave you to your work.”

It’s while Garak is speaking that Julian thinks through the _why_ of him hearing his normally stealthy friend approach, and he can only think it’s because Garak wanted him to hear him coming.  “Wait,” Julian says a little too loudly just as Garak turns to leave.  “I’m sorry, you came here to say something.  I’ll listen.”  He spins back around and leans against the counter, facing him.

Garak’s look is conflicted, another thing Julian knows he’s being _allowed_ to see.  “I wanted to see how you’re doing, after everything that’s happened.”

“I’m fine,” Julian assures him with an irritated wave of his hand.

“Yes, well, you haven’t come to lunch in quite some time.”  _Not since the prison camp_ , remains unsaid.  “I admit, I was a little concerned.”

“I’ve just been busy,” Julian tells him as he turns back around to his task.  “Besides, I’m sure you’re all faring just fine without me.”  He flinches, he hadn’t meant to say that much.

“’All’, Doctor?  How many people have you been avoiding?”

He spins around, irritated and wanting to be left alone.  “I’m not avoiding anyone.  And even if I was, it’s not like anyone would notice.”

Garak’s eyes move back and forth, like they’re scanning his face.  “That’s what this is about,” he says like he’s solved the mystery.  But they both know it’s far from difficult to figure out.  He takes a breath and says in an infuriatingly calm voice, “I’m sorry I didn’t realize that it wasn’t you.”

“You’re not the only one,” Julian says, stepping further into the room and leaning on the biobed that stands between them.  “The changeling did a good job.  He was a better me than me, apparently.”

Garak looks at him curiously.  “What does that mean?”

“Something Miles said.  It’s nothing, really.”  Julian dismisses the thought with a wave like all is forgiven.  “I’m used to people wanting a better version of me.”  And with that, the conversation is seemingly over.

But of course, Garak is here to contradict such a notion.  “Does it really matter what other people think of you?”

Julian can feel his anger rising again.  “Don’t give me that, Garak, I’ve watched you spend the last several years on a Bajoran space station making yourself seem as little threatening as possible.”

His friend smiles.  “You’ve got me there.”

He takes a deep breath, but it does nothing to dispel his irritation.  “Not like I can really talk, I’ve been doing the exact same thing since I found out what I was.”

Garak stares at him, expressionless once more, and Julian is about to turn back to his work again when Garak blinks slowly and then speaks.  “ _I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself_.”

Julian returns the blink with one of his own as he processes, remembering back to old conversations of theirs and trying to work out why Garak would bring up that particular quote.  “Are you quoting _Human_ literature now?”

Garak doesn’t nod, doesn’t move.  “You like that poem, I remember you saying as much when you pointed it out to me.  I’m starting to understand _why_.”

A part of Julian wants to yell at the man.  “It doesn’t matter, though, does it?  Now that my secret is out, every time anyone looks at me, they’re going to see Khan Singh instead.  And I am going to have to spend the rest of my life proving over and over again that I’m just Julian Bashir.  Whoever that even is, since I can be gone for over a month and no one will notice I’ve been replaced!”  He takes a deep breath and turns around once more, resolving to remain so until Garak leaves.  “Nothing has changed, not really.  I just have to go from holding myself back to avoid detection to holding myself back so they don’t always look at me with fear and mistrust and hatred.”

He puts his hands on the counter and stares at his fingers until he can feel a shift in the room that tells him he is alone once more, the other man having left far more quietly than he arrived.  It’s only then that Julian thinks on his last comment and how he and Garak might be far more alike than he’d previously considered.  He files the thought away for when he’s in a more forgiving mood.

V

Jules is still there, Julian can feel him.  He keeps Jules tucked inside the fur and stuffing of Kukalaka, or at least he tries to.  There are times at night, in the stillness of the station, that he holds the bear close and knows that Jules could never be trapped inside something so small.  Jules seeps from the bear and into his skin.  Jules sleeps inside his ribs.

Julian thinks it must be dark inside there, he worries Jules will suffocate, that he’ll be snuffed out by the war, by the cynicism and all the things Julian is made to do in the name of winning.  So when he wakes up in the morning, Julian makes sure to put on a smile, though it gets harder with every passing day.  He makes sure to argue back whenever someone decides that violence or murder or manipulation are excusable when done for a vague greater good.  He swears to himself that he’ll help anyone in front of him that needs it, no matter whose side they’re on.

Years ago he stole that little boy’s life, the most he can do now is make the theft worth it.

VI

It begins with a letter.

And it’s such an _inadequate_ letter at that, full of small anecdotes of life on the station since Garak left that have unsatisfying conclusions.  But he had to write _something_.  Julian has never been one for staying in touch, he’s always been the one that packs his things and leaves for somewhere new.  Now he thinks back to the Earth of centuries ago when lovers and friends and siblings put ink on paper with weeks between writing and it being read, and he knows exactly why they did it.  He didn’t know if he’d even receive a reply, but he had to reach out in some way.

At night, if he lets his thoughts get away from him, he starts to think too much on how incomplete he feels.  Life on the station is different, he knew it would be after the war, but he feels detached from it in a way that he never had before.  He has to keep hold of his thoughts because otherwise he thinks about how dangerously close Ezri’s assessment was when she jokingly criticized his taste in adventure.  There’s something wrong, something missing.  It isn’t just the loss of his friends, he knows, but he felt like he had to write the letter to Garak to find out.  Like sending out a question and hoping the answer will point him in the right direction.

He didn’t expect a response, but he had hoped for one.  And several weeks later he gets one.  It’s less of an answer and more of a question to match his own.  Julian recognizes the feeling that follows, he knows it well, the way a question can tear down all the certainties in your life.  It’s freeing, really, knowing suddenly just how wide and unpredictable time and the universe can be.

So he packs his bag and informs Kira of his destination.  It’s not the proper way to go about things and it could cost him his career in Starfleet, but it’s in moments of clarity like this that he can see just how fickle and unimportant such things are.  There are several outcomes placed before him, some with variables that he can predict and others with variables he knows are just beyond his grasp.  It’s not that all the outcomes of leaving are preferable to the surety of remaining where he is, but a few of them are and that makes the risk a worthy one.

Luck is on his side, it seems, when he learns that Captain Yates is making a run to Cardassia Prime.  He sends a brief message to Garak just before he boards the ship.  Kasidy keeps her eye on him.  Julian expects her to ask a question or make a comment, but she does neither, she just watches him with a curious look.  For his own part, he keeps silent as well and he’s sure his silence doesn’t go unnoticed.  But he doesn’t know what to say – there are too many things up in the air for both of them.

She breaks the silence toward the end of the trip to inform him that there’s nowhere within the city for them to land, between the debris and the buildings just managing to stay standing, it’s too unsafe.  Instead all ships are being directed to land in a cleared area beside a nearby town.  There’s a train that runs to the city a couple of times a day – the tracks were cleared a few weeks ago – and it will be the easiest way for him to get there.

Julian makes it two steps down the ramp before turning around and pulling Kasidy into a hug.  It’s the end of something, he thinks as she wraps her arms around his shoulders.  He remembers her teaching him to swing a bat and now that’s all gone, the family they had all built together, that life is over.  Try as they might, there’s no getting it back.

When he pulls away, one of her hands slides to his cheek, and he can see that she’s crying.  Still, neither of them say anything.  He nods once and heads back down the ramp.

He locates the train station and begins walking toward it.  The building itself was destroyed, but there are people lined up where the platform would have been.  That’s when it really sinks in, what place he’s come to.  Luck had nothing to do with it, luck has nothing to do with any of this.  _You survived because you’re strong,_ he hears in his memory.  That’s all they have left, but for the first time it makes him feel a little optimistic.

He boards the train with that thought.  They’ll make it through this.  The past is behind them, but they’ll build something new.  Kasidy will make it, and she has Jake, Kira, and Dax to help her.  And him, he has… whatever is waiting for him at the end of this journey.

-

The train ride takes several hours and Julian watches the Cardassian afternoon pass by through the window.  He tries not think too much on what might happen when the train stops.  Will Garak even come to meet him there?  What if he doesn’t actually want to see Julian?  So Julian tries to quiet the thoughts by mentally running through the contents of Garak’s letter.

The letter.  It felt like a plea for understanding, for forgiveness.  But more than that the letter is a question, it asks _what happened to us?_ It asks _will we ever finish what we started?_ Julian doesn’t know the answer any more than the one who asked it, but he wants to find out.

The train pulls into the station slowly and Julian can feel the flutter in his stomach rising up like a wave to overtake him.  He swallows it down and stands up to disembark the train, realizing belatedly that he’s the only Human on board.  But no one around him seems to be paying him any mind.

His bag on his shoulder, he steps out into the dusty air of the city.  He scans the crowd, looking for any sign of familiarity among the bustling travelers trying to find their loved ones or the next step in their journey, or the locals working to rebuild their lives.  Julian is the one who is found, he realizes, when he finds a pair of blue eyes that are already watching him with recognition.

The flutter returns and if Julian even had a mind to turn away, he may not have been able to as his feet carried him in the man’s direction, slowly, weaving their way through the crowd.  “Garak,” he says, feeling rather ridiculous that he’d had the whole trip here to think of what to say, but managed to come up with nothing more than a name in greeting.

“Doctor Bashir,” Garak replies with a nod.

“Yes,” Julian breathes, fidgeting where he stands.  “I got your letter.”

“I should have hoped so.”  Garak’s lips quirk upward and Julian’s awkward discomfort.  “Perhaps we should get moving, my home is more toward the edge of the city and by the looks of it,” he glances up at the sky.  “There seems to be a storm coming, perhaps as soon as tonight.”  He gestures the way.

They walk side by side in silence, and Julian’s attention is stolen by the city around them.  Through the destruction he can see that it was once beautiful.  He’d never been to Cardassia before, but he can imagine the glass and stone picking themselves up and returning to their places.  The cracks being wiped away, and in place of the tragedy, he can picture the tall shining buildings that once stood around them.

Much of the daylight has gone by the time Garak leads him around structures of debris and he can see the garden shed that is both alike and not at all what he imagined.

Humans are often very tactile creatures.  Julian has never considered himself one such human, but as he thinks about it he considers that he’s always experienced the world through his hands in one way or another.  His medical supplies, a wounded patient, the skin of a lover, the backs of friends as he embraces them.  He knows Kukalaka’s fur by heart and could use a hypospray in his sleep.  He’s known so many different kinds of touch throughout his life.  He could try to catalogue them if he wants – angry touches, pleasurable touches, comforting touches, and that one time touch was used to pass another’s consciousness into his body.

As he walks through Garak’s small home, he experiences it through touch.  _Home_ , what a strange concept.  Garak lives in a garden shed, the last remnant of the house he grew up in, the house of his biological father and tormentor.  The shed is small enough that Julian is concerned how Garak manages to get by without any claustrophobic attacks; but his letter did say that he leaves the door open at least sometimes to make the space larger.

Julian’s hand runs along the wooden wall as he steps through the door, so different from the glass and metal and stone of the larger city buildings.  The wood is a dark colour, he isn’t familiar with any of the trees of this planet, and his fingers dance over the small ledge of the windowsill.  The window – there’s only one in the entire shed – is small as well, and a little dirty, but it still lets in the light of the setting sun.

There’s a workbench along one wall, half of it crowded with tools, stacked flowerpots, and a bag of soil, the other half scattered with a few containers of food.  Below the bench are a couple of bags that contain what Julian assumes to be the rest of Garak’s belongings.  Or at least the items that aren’t of great importance.  He spins around, suddenly feeling very out of place.  “I didn’t,” he stammers.  “I should leave.  I don’t want to impose.”

Garak’s smile is small and Julian can almost catch the warring emotions behind it – amusement, concern, irritation, embarrassment.  “Do you have somewhere else to stay?” he asks with the tone of one who clearly knows the answer.

Julian shakes his head.  He should have thought this through more, he’d read that letter twice before boarding the ship, and once more during the journey.  He knew how difficult Garak’s current situation had become.  “I didn’t come here to take up what little space you have.”

“Why _did_ you come here?”

Julian considers his answer for a moment, going over his life on the station since the war and the feelings that had led him to reach out.  He tries to think of a way to explain it all.  “Do you remember when I loaned you the book _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_?”

“Certainly,” Garak answers with a hint of a true smile, leaning back against the door frame.  “Quite a strange book too.  I’m still not sure why you had me read it, though I do admire its attention to logic amidst all the nonsense.”

“That’s exactly why I had you read it,” Julian replies before continuing with his answer.  “That book is Victorian Literature, basically meaning that it was written while a woman named Victoria was the queen of a nation called Great Britain.”

“What an odd way to mark your literature.”

Julian ignores the comment.  “Now, though I do love a lot about Earth history, the lives of royals aren’t exactly part of my interests, but there are a few things that stood out to me.  For instance, when Victoria first rose to power she found a mentor in the Prime Minister at the time, a man named Lord Melbourne.  He was significantly older than her but they became close friends over the years, maintaining contact even after she married and he retired from politics.  Some people weren’t happy that the two were still communicating, and it was _technically_ unconstitutional—”

“That’s the first thing you’ve said so far that I can completely comprehend.”

“—so they were forced to stop sending letters to each other.  Now apparently, when informed that he had to cut ties with the queen, Melbourne got quite emotional.  He yelled a few things, among them was this phrase that I’ve always found to be so intriguing.  He said ‘flesh and blood cannot stand this.’”  He pauses a moment, not sure how to end his explanation, and winces at how inadequate he’s afraid his answer might be.  “And that’s why I came here.”

“Forgive me if I don’t follow.”

A small, uncertain smile finds its way onto Julian’s face.  “I think you do follow, but I’ll try to say it clearer.  I read your letter – twice – and I knew something.  Mainly, I just knew that I had to come here.”

“And that’s it?  Come here and do what?”  All trace of amusement disappears from Garak’s face, leaving… nothing.  No emotion, positive or negative.  A test then, perhaps.

Julian opens his mouth to answer and then closes it again.  Did he have any solid plan?  “Honestly, I – I packed a bag and spoke with Colonel Kira.  She gave me ten days leave, which was incredibly kind of her, though I’m still not sure if I _want_ to go back.”

“But what did you plan on doing once you arrived?”

There was only one real way to go forward.  “Talk, I suppose.”

“About what?”  Garak still wasn’t going to lend him any help in this.

“About… about all the things that need to be said.  About how the war ended and you left, and then everyone left.  How is it that a war was keeping us all together?  Or we can talk about the intervening months and the way life on the station has tried, painfully, to go back to normal.  Or we can talk about your letter.”

“My letter.”

“Yes, your novel-length letter that seemed to only ask more questions than it answered.  Let’s talk about that and how we drifted apart.  And how you think it’s because of what happened in that damned holosuite.”

“Isn’t it?”  And now Julian can see a crack in the façade.

Julian leans back against the workbench and stares at the floor, unable to answer.  He recalls reading that part of the letter and how Garak had felt so _certain_ of something, but then implied that the event revealed something about Julian that he didn’t want to know.  “Maybe you’re right, maybe I didn’t want to be the person who would shoot his own friend.”  Because now he holds these warring images; there’s Garak in the simulation, dying, and then Garak in the holosuite, bleeding from a wound that Julian caused himself.  And he can’t reconcile the pain and grief that the first one brought him with his willingness to go so far in the second.

Garak steps slightly further into the small space and closes the door behind him, leaning on it.  “We all have parts of us that we don’t like.”

Julian smiles, but there’s no warmth to it.  “Yes, but the question is what to do when all of you is a part you don’t like.”

“Are we still talking about the holosuite?”

“Yes.  No.”  He takes a breath.  “I don’t know.  My name used to be Jules, you know.  I changed it myself when I found out what my parents had done.  And sometimes I do things and I think ‘Jules would never have done that,’ and I think of moments like that time in the holosuite or everything that happened with Sloan and Section 31 and I…”

“It’s not unusual to regret certain things in the past,” Garak tells him, though with some cost by the sound of it.

“But that’s the thing, whether or not I regret any of it, whether or not I hate what my parents did to their son, I don’t want to change the past because I can’t know how life as Jules would have turned out.  Would Jules have gotten into Starfleet?  Would Jules have been stationed at Deep Space Nine?  You and me?  Chances are we wouldn’t have become friends.  If we had ever met you would have just dismissed me as another human, you said as much in your letter.”

“I said nothing of the sort.”

He wonders if he should ever have come to this planet after all.  “Yes, you said that the way I was made me more like a Cardassian.  Which means that if I hadn’t undergone the enhancements, you wouldn’t have liked Jules.”  He looks up now at his friend, not sure what to expect, but certainly not expecting the thoughtful look he finds there.

“My dear, I would have loved Jules,” Garak says softly, like he’s afraid to overstep some bounds he isn’t sure are even there.  “I love him now.”

Julian sighs with frustration.  “How could you possibly know that?”  The question sounds like the kind that’s meant to end arguments, but Julian truly wants an answer.  A small drop of hope has rippled through him and he tries to convey that need now, thinks that maybe his open book of a face will come in handy in this one instance.

“There are parts of you that have nothing to do with genetic engineering.  No one engineered your compassion, no one could.  They couldn’t engineer your optimism or your determination.  No one gave you your sense of adventure or your ability to find beauty in everyone and everything.  Those are all Jules.  Those are all you.  You’re right, we can’t know what you would have been like without the enhancements, but that doesn’t change the fact that eight years ago I sat down across from a young man who was curious, excited, argumentative, and brilliant.  You aren’t two different people.”

“If only it were such an easy thing to believe.”

Something in Garak’s demeanor shifts, he moves from vulnerable to something else.  “You said you were staying for ten days?”

Julian straightens up, a little startled by the sudden change in subject.  “Yes, I got leave for ten days.”

“And then you said you weren’t sure if you would return to the station.  Where would you go if you didn’t go back?”

“Well,” he rolls his shoulders in thought, his bag still weighing on him.  “I can’t say anything with any certainty.  I could request a transfer or I could leave Starfleet altogether.  I don’t see myself returning to Earth, not when I’ve already come out so far.  I suppose there are plenty of planets that would have an opening for a doctor and wouldn’t mind my genetic status.  I could even… stay here, perhaps.  Provided there’s a use for me.”

“Oh, we certainly have a need for doctors.  Though, I admit, I’m a little surprised.  Leaving the station, maybe leaving Starfleet – it’s a big change.”

“Uh, yes, it is.  But there are times when you look around and realize that the walls of your home aren’t really your home at all.  And then you remember just how wide and open the universe is.”

“Ah,” Garak blinks slowly.  “ _I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.”_

Julian smiles, and it’s a small smile, but it feels triumphant, like he hasn’t truly smiled in years.  “ _A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself._ At risk of sounding too sentimental, I suppose it was time to leave the birdcage.”

“At risk of the same,” and Garak’s smile is wide enough to brighten Julian’s own, “I will be honoured to see you as you are.”

“In all honesty, I think you just might be the only person who ever has.”

“Well, Doctor,” Garak says as he walks toward the half of the workbench not covered in gardening tools.  Julian slides out of his way.  “If you do plan on staying here for longer than ten days, then I suggest we do something about the space.  It’s a bit cramped for _one_ person; I’m afraid two people would be quite uncomfortable after a while.”  Garak lights a candle and it illuminates the rapidly darkening shed.  The flame casts a glow on the dark wood and it fills Julian with a sense of peace he hasn’t felt since before the war.  “This evening, though, I have a few things I still need to work on.  The temperature is dropping every day, you know.”

“I didn’t notice,” Julian laughs softly, and he doubts he really will.  He watches as Garak settles into the corner and notices how all the anxiety he’d felt just a few hours ago feels lifted.  There’s more to talk about, more to work through; the past is behind them, but only _just._ He remembers how he felt when Garak left, ‘flesh and blood’ indeed, and now it feels like something has been righted.  Because here he stands, in a garden shed on a war-torn planet far from his own, with the one man who challenges him, angers him, pushes him, and excites him.  They’d seen each other through some of the most difficult moments of their lives.  So many memories, and Julian can flip back through all of them – their lunches, Garak dying in the simulation, trading the same chocolates back and forth, Garak’s stubbornness in the prison camp.  He looks down at the man now.  “Thank you.”

Garak pauses, his gaze lifting.  “You are always welcome.”  And his smile is one that Julian wants to touch, to learn in the way he has learned so many things.  Instead, he takes off his bag, setting it down on the floor beneath the workbench.

This isn’t anything like he expected.  He knew what it was to care, to love.  He’d loved so many different people in so many different ways.  He’d read so many books – Human, Cardassian, and more – where people fell in love, where people _loved._   But something is still different about this.  He glances up at Garak, attempting to get some last minute work done on a coat in the candlelight, with the Cardassian winter on its way.

Julian walks to the window and raises his eyes to the dark sky above them, fraught with storm clouds.  But he looks beyond that, finding a break in the cloud cover where the myriad stars shine through.  He stares at those distant points of light and, it’s a silly thought, really, he wonders if that’s the direction that Earth is in.  That if he looks straight ahead in that direction, light years beyond light years away there is a little planet full of water and trees, and a little boy staring up at the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> The two poems referenced are 'maggie and milly and molly and may' by e e cummings and 'Self-Pity' by D.H. Lawrence.


End file.
